Agenda and minutes

(1)       The Committee extended its best wishes to Mr Mike Harrison who was recovering after a spell in hospital. 

(2)       Mr L B Ridings moved, seconded by Mr C Pearman that Mr A H T Bowles be elected as Chairman for the meeting.

                                                Carried with no opposition.

(3)       Mr Bowles thereupon took the Chair.

RESOLVED that, subject to an amendment to Minute 18 (10) to indicate that the person who chaired the Recovery Group would attend the Response Group meetings from the onset, the Minutes of the meeting held on 14 November 2016 are correctly recorded and that they be signed by the Chairman.

(1)       Professor Alastair Driver gave a presentation. The slides are contained within the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website.

(2)       Professor Driver introduced himself. He said he had been the first conservationist in the Water Industry during the 1980s, working in the Thames catchment for 20 years.   For 15 years until September 2016 he had been the Head of Conservation for the Environment Agency.  Since retiring, he was working as the Director of England and Wales Rewilding Britain.  This was a very small organisation with only three paid personnel in the UK (a Director in England/Wales and in Scotland as well as an overall Co-ordinator).

(3)       Professor Driver said that the thrust of Rewilding Britain’s work was to bring about and enhance healthy, functioning catchments.  It worked on the understanding that everyone who was involved in environmental management and restoration had a role to play in rewilding.  This meant that at the most basic level, the pond at the bottom of a garden was important whilst at the top end of the scale there were very large areas (10k hectares in England and Wales and over 100k hectares in Scotland) where the landscape and its hydrology should be allowed to function naturally.  This would bring both environmental and social benefits (such as flood management) whilst continuing to enable people inhabiting these areas to make a living.  The best example of a large scale rewilding area in England was Ennerdale in the Lake District, Cumbria.

(4)        Professor Driver then said that the first people he had approached since becoming Director had been the NFU, followed by the CLA. Their members had asked what a rewilded area would look like. His reply had been that it would vary on every occasion according to its environment and the time that needed to be spent to bring it to its optimal condition.   A slide taken of a Welsh Mountainside after thirty years demonstrated the very great length of time that it took to revert an exposed, infertile landscape back to woodland. 

(5)       Professor Driver then gave some actual examples of natural flood management which could be undertaken “from source to sea.”  At Exmoor, the simple acts of blocking ditches had dramatically reduced peak flows from the ecologically restored areas and increased storm flow lag times in the space of a year.  Rewilding Britain was able to evidence that peak flows reduced by some 30% whenever Uplands such as Exmoor were ecologically restored.

(6)       Professor Driver moved on to consider the challenges and possibilities in Kent.   He used the phrase “little and often” to describe the approach.  Flood Management often consisted of doing a number of things on a relatively small scale.  At Belford Burn in Northumberland, volunteers had built bunds out of timber, creating a number of ponds which collectively held a great deal of water back more economically than would have been the case through the creation of a very large reservoir.   He added that the slow release of water that  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

(1)       Mr Victor Freeney from TEAM 2100 gave a presentation. The slides are contained within the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website. 

(2)       Mr Freeney began his presentation by setting out the area covered by the Team which was between Twickenham in the South West to Southend and the Isle of Grain in the East.   It contained 23 policy units, 13 of which had their defence systems fully funded whilst 10 (including the 4 in Kent) still needed local funding to complement the government funding which was already in place.   TEAM 2100’s work programme set out how flood risk would be managed in the Thames Estuary area up to and beyond 2100.            Work on developing the flood management plan had begun on 2002 and it had been published in 2012. 

(3)       Mr Freeney said that the effect of climate change would be an increase in storm surges and seal level rises as well as increased rainfall. More people now lived in the flood plain, increasing the consequences of any flooding that did occur.   He added that the UK was tilting from top left to bottom right so that the southeast was effectively sinking.   In addition, flood defences were now ageing, which also increased the flood risk. 

(4)       Mr Freeney then said that the Thames Estuary plan was outlined in three phases.  TEAM 2100’s responsibility in Phase 1 (2002 to @2015 Maintaining confidence and planning together) was to secure the investment programme for the first ten years of the plan. 

(5)       Mr Freeney went on to set out key facts in TEAM 2100’s 10 year delivery programme.   The contract had been signed in late 2014 with the Environment Agency as the client.   It would run for 7 years with a 3 year extension at an estimated cost of £308m.  The Integrated Delivery Team consisted of the Environment Agency working with CH2M, Balfour Beatty, Qualter Hall, Hunton Engineering, KGAL and engineering safety consultants.  This was an innovative approach as it brought the clients and providers into the same team.

(6)       Ms Rebecca Murphy (Environment Agency) set out to describe the physical work being undertaken, together with the plan going forward.  The 10 year programme was essentially split into two sections, the first of which was the major maintenance of the major barriers including the Thames Barrier and the Dartford Creek Barrier.  The second was the fixed and active assets such as the walls and tidal embankments as well as the smaller pedestrian and vehicular floodgates and the tidal outfalls.  The physical work generally covered major maintenance, but also included inspection, repair or refurbishment of these defences.  There were no plans to carry out major replacements during the 10 year period.

(7)       Ms Murphy said that the major focus of the first two years of the 10 year programme had been on the initial assessment and appraisals of the historic assets, including a general walk-over by the geological and technical experts.  This work was supported by facilitation exercises such as annual  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

(1)       Fiona Gaffney (KCC Head of Resilience and Emergency Planning) gave a presentation. The slides are contained within the electronic agenda papers on the KCC website. 

(2)       Ms Gaffney briefly recapped the Exercise Surge scenario. The exercise had taken place between 25 and 27 September 2016.  It had involved County-wide flooding and evacuations.   It had been drawn up in such a way as to involve all the Boroughs and Districts, testing all the relevant agencies’ ability to provide mutual aid. 

(3)       The Multi Agency Group had set itself 47 objectives, all of which had been met.  Some of the key objectives were the testing of the KRF Evacuation and Shelter Plan; the Pan Kent Flood Plan; elements of the multi-agency Flood Plans, the effectiveness of the Bronze (operational) training; the Romney Marsh Diversion and Evacuation Plan; and the validation of the lessons learned in previous exercises.   An entire day had been focussed on the Recovery element. This aspect of the exercise had been led by KCC.  Some 250 people had participated in the Recovery Table Top exercise on the final day.

(4)       Ms Gaffney said that a key element of this exercise was that it involved all the KRF partners. It had been led by the Local Authorities, involving (amongst others) the Emergency Services, the Voluntary Sector, and the Environment Agency. Overall, some 800 people had been involved in some capacity. 

(5)       Ms Gaffney moved on to discuss the three debriefing sessions. The first of these (October 2016) had been for the Exercise Surge Planning Team.  This had identified the need for a communication plan in tandem with the exercise planning, because the wider public had not been made aware that such a large scale exercise was taking place.  If information about the exercise had been made widely available, there would have been tremendous benefits in terms of community resilience. 

(6)       The scoping of the exercise had grown tremendously due to the large number of agencies involved, all of whom wished to test their own priorities.  Although this had not led to any dilution of what needed to be tested, it had stretched resources.  In future, there would be a cut-off point in the scoping process after which the focus would be purely on delivery.  

(7)       Ms Gaffney said that it was not intended to carry out such a resource-intensive exercise every year.  The likelihood was that it would be once (perhaps twice) in a three year cycle. 

(8)       Ms Gaffney continued by considering the legacy of Exercise Surge. The lessons learned would be used to inform the training that was offered in the future.  One of these was that an off-the-shelf training product would be developed which would be given to the Gold Commanders.

(9)       Ms Gaffney said that the Recovery part of the Exercise had focussed on the immediate recovery period a day after the event itself.   This aspect would be tested again in the exercise planned for 207/18, but on this occasion there would also be an  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

1)         Mr Harwood reported that the number of flood alerts issues by the Environment Agency since the previous  meeting of the Committee had now risen to a total of 21 (4 fluvial and 17 coastal), contrasting with the overall figure   of 54 flood alerts during the corresponding period in 2015/16.   The Thames Barrier has been closed on 11 occasions (8 for flood defence and 3 for test purposes) during the same period.

(2)       Mr Harwood added that in 2016 the month of December had seen only 17% of its average rainfall.   January 2017 had seen an average amount of rainfall, but February had also been dry. As a result, Bewl Reservoir was now only ^2/3rds full.  

(3)       The coastal flooding alerts that had occurred were the result of spring tides and North Sea surges experienced between 11 and 17 January 2017, which had triggered a wide scale precautionary evacuation.  

(4)       RESOLVED that the report be noted.